Timing program runtimes in visual C++

Question

Is there a quick and easy way of timing a section of a program (or the entire thing) without having to setup a timer class, functions, and variables inside my program itself?

I'm specifically referring to Visual C++ (Professional 2008).

Thanks,

-Faken

Edit: none of these answers do what i ask for, i would like to be able to time a program inside visual c++ WITHOUT having to write extra bits of code inside it. Similar to how people do it with BASH in Linux.

Answer 1

In the Intel and AMD CPUs there is a high speed counter. The Windows API includes function calls to read the value of this counter and also the frequency of the counter - i.e. how many times per second it is counting.

Here's an example how to time your time in microseconds:

#include <iostream>
#include <windows.h>

int main()
{
        __int64 ctr1 = 0, ctr2 = 0, freq = 0;

        // Start timing the code.

        if (QueryPerformanceCounter((LARGE_INTEGER *) &ctr1) != 0) {
                // Do what ever you do, what ever you need to time...
                //
                //
                //

                // Finish timing the code.

                QueryPerformanceCounter((LARGE_INTEGER *) &ctr2);
                QueryPerformanceFrequency((LARGE_INTEGER *) &freq);

                // Print the time spent in microseconds to the console.

                std::cout << ((ctr2 - ctr1) * 1.0 / freq) << std::endl;
        }
}